Dialogue

Collect examples of dialogue. Restaurants, Coffee shops, Malls, Buses, Trains, School, Sporting events.
Record dialogue with your mobile phone, camera, ipod.
Some rules by Alex Glasgow, scriptwriter.
  1. No more than nine words per utterance.
  2. Lots of incomplete sentence fragments.
  3. Lots of ellipses, or points of suspension, shown by....
  4. Plenty of interruption, either by the speaker or the other person.
  5. Give each speaker a different rhythm or pattern of phrasing.
The dialogue must also be 'packed'. Don't let the characters waffle. Each utterance must show or imply:
  1. Something about the speaker
  2. Something about the person spoken to
  3. Something about the situation (the when, how or what)
  4. Something about the location (where)
  5. Something about the motivation (why)

More sites: